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Is Someone Leaching My iPhone Data?

M

modit

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 8, 2008
340
37
Canada
I've been a USB tethering kind guy and I even left my jailbreak for a while in order to use the new personal hotspot feature in iOS 4.3 :)

I just paired my iPhone 4’s Bluetooth to my MacBook Pro for the first time yesterday night (reason being is that I didn’t want my iPhone’s WiFi address being shown to my apartment neighbors (i.e. Name’s iPhone))

20 minutes later, I noticed that there was 2 personal hotspot connections. I killed my Bluetooth connection and tried again 15 minutes later and lo and behold, another connection is established which I then gave up for the night and stuck with USB tethering.

Should I avoid using Bluetooth since someone is trying to use it? :(
 
The iPhone 4 uses a class 2 Bluetooth radio which has an effective range of about 10 meters.
Anyone within that range will be able to discover you device.
They should not be able to actually pair with your phone without you accepting the connection first.
 
rjohnstone said:
The iPhone 4 uses a class 2 Bluetooth radio which has an effective range of about 10 meters.
Anyone within that range will be able to discover you device.
They should not be able to actually pair with your phone without you accepting the connection first.
Click to expand...

I know!!! It sucks that I live in a corner suite (1 apt above, 1 below, 1 on the side and 1 in front) :eek:

I only paired my Mac and iPhone so I can't even guess how some other device could establish another second connection. What should I do? Can I put a password on it?

BTW, good jokes guys but this is a little bit more serious :p
 
Applejuiced said:
They can try to connect but won't get far.
It will ask for a pin to be entered for BT pairing.
Click to expand...

OK man...but reading "Two Personal Hotspot Connections" on my iPhone screen scares me. :eek:
Are you 100% sure nothing will occur even if they establish a connection? How can I tell for certain?

Thanks :eek:
 
modit said:
OK man...but reading "Two Personal Hotspot Connections" on my iPhone screen scares me. :eek:
Are you 100% sure nothing will occur even if they establish a connection? How can I tell for certain?

Thanks :eek:
Click to expand...

It's an i4 and you enabled the hotspot feature right?
You sure you turn off wifi so you don't broadcast thru that also and make sure you're just using BT?
If you created a wifi hotspot open for everyone to connect then it would make sense how someone else connected also.
Make sure you turn off wifi in settings when you use the hotspot feature.
 
2 connections, 1 device

Has anyone found out why this happens? I've got my iPad connected via Hotspot to my iPhone 4 and it says there's 2 connections and I KNOW that my iPad is the only device connected.

Scenario:
Hotspot turned on on iPhone 4.
iPad connected to hotspot, all is A-OK. 1 connection.
iPad is then switched to home wireless connection. Hotspot says 0 connections.
Next Day, iPad and iPhone leave the house together.
iPhone hotspot says 2 connections.


Any ideas? Is there anyway of seeing a list of the devices that are connected? It's beginning to sound like a bug to me, but I can't find anything that lists it as a known bug. :confused:
 
Bia said:
Has anyone found out why this happens? I've got my iPad connected via Hotspot to my iPhone 4 and it says there's 2 connections and I KNOW that my iPad is the only device connected.

Scenario:
Hotspot turned on on iPhone 4.
iPad connected to hotspot, all is A-OK. 1 connection.
iPad is then switched to home wireless connection. Hotspot says 0 connections.
Next Day, iPad and iPhone leave the house together.
iPhone hotspot says 2 connections.


Any ideas? Is there anyway of seeing a list of the devices that are connected? It's beginning to sound like a bug to me, but I can't find anything that lists it as a known bug. :confused:
Click to expand...

It's possible that someone is using your connection without you know, unlikely though. Sounds like a bug more likely.
 
macingman said:
It's possible that someone is using your connection without you know, unlikely though. Sounds like a bug more likely.
Click to expand...

You'd think so, but I've changed the connection password and run through the same scenario, and it generates 2 connections still.

So, either it's a bug or some super hacker wants to hack into my life because frankly I'm awesome, and because my mobile's network connection is super fast and everyone is jealous - NOT!
 
Are you running a VM on any of the machines connected to your iPhone? I've had VMware running and it comes up as 2 connections. It could also be that something is causing the IP to change, but the first one isn't being discarded.

If I'm not mistaken, the # of connections shown by the iPhone is the number of IP's it is giving out over the connection.

That said, I highly doubt someone could be hijacking your bluetooth signal, as it would have to mean that they were somehow able to pair and input a pairing code without touching the phone... telekinectics maybe? Then you'd have a bigger problem :rolleyes:


If it really bothers you, you can try resetting all network settings on the iPhone. I think this also includes bluetooth networking, so no one would have a pairing connection with your phone.
 
s4yunkim said:
It could also be that something is causing the IP to change, but the first one isn't being discarded.
Click to expand...

This sounds like the most likely cause. I'm not sure what VMware could be running, but will check.

Mac site doesn't help so much, as the actual functionality is OK, but thanks anyways everyone for your help. As I'm 99.99% sure that my network isn't being hijacked, I'll keep monitoring it and will post any updates.
 
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